Day 15: Starting right now I'll be strong. I'll play my fight song And I don't really care If nobody else believes 'Cause I've still got A lot of fight left in me

Miles: 0 (although probably a good 5 from walking back and forth so many times)
Countries: Romania
Stops: Bucharest: Airbnb, food, Airbnb, food, hostel
Playlist: N/A

Last night we sat in the car in the heart of Bucharest for 2 or so hours not knowing where to go. We spent almost an hour of it with insurance. Of course, the credit card we bought into, specifically what is considered the best travel credit card, covers all but theft. And even if they make an exception, it's a max of $1000 per person. The lady was super sweet and sympathetic and did everything she could in opening a ticket and hoping they'd cover everything, but at this point, we don't even know anymore. We have put this whole trip on it, meanwhile, I also paid into an AMEX travel card that would've covered this but we didn't book anything on it for this... because why WOULD things line up at this point? When we're up, we're really up, when we're down, we're quite down. Doesn't seem to be an inbetween...

At this point our Aussies made it to Bucharest and we drove off to meet them at their Airbnb. They put us up for the night, didn't let us pitch in, insisted on buying dinner, and treated us to an amazing night out. It's amazing some friends you make along the way - and we've only know them 4 days!

We went out on the town, drank away our sorrows, and danced until 4:30am (it was so hot! Shirts may or may not have come off at the clubs, and the floors were just a mess of sweat-soaked napkins). We stumbled back to the Airbnb where we somehow managed to sleep in until checkout time at noon. Without even a chance to shower, we had to lug everything back to the gypsy run car lot. Everything - all our bins, luggages, everything. We didn't leave anything and it was quite the trek since there are no roads in the heart of Bucharest where we were staying. We all strapped everything to the car and went for coffee and food paranoid for our stuff. We had a pretty good last meal together and were really sad to part! Hopefully our paths cross again before this trip is over <3

We posted in the Mongol rally Facebook group and a MR veteran who lives in Bucharest reached out to us. He suggest a little hostel that turned out super accommodating and he looked into parking for us. He's going to provide us with a SIM card and has been pretty responsive anytime we have questions!

We had to lug everything back from the car to the hostel which is 3 doors down from where we stayed last night. In 40 degrees. I don't think I've ever sweated this much and justin almost vomited. It's absolutely brutal - you sweat from just sitting, let alone carrying heavy things back and forth for an hour. We settled into the hostel, moved our car, showered, and have been napping for hours.

Not really sure what our plan is for the rest of the evening at this point but got to keep our chin up and sort out our next steps now that we have regular wifi. We're being told passport should be pretty quick, but the car ownership can take 5 days, if not more. Also need to figure out if the visas will work with a new passport number or if our trip towards the East is over.

If so, we'll continue doing a eurotrip and drive through Greece, Croatia, Italy, Spain, France. Could be worse, but we've invested so much in this, really hoping there's a chance we can salvage this situation and it'll just be a funny story down the road.